Reign of the Old Ones
by IbnAlHazred
Summary: Tales of a wandering wizard's quest to bring about the reign of the old gods who ruled before the great cataclysm.


A Sacrifice

A White skull screamed in the darkness. A slow rhythm drummed somewhere in the consuming blackness. The skull wavered from side to side as the rhythm accelerated. Slowly four orange embers glowed forth, in a row before the swaying skull. They revealed a stark black human form its skull glowing bright against the ebony skin glistening with sweat and the humidity of this balmy land. The embers grew brighter as the tempo increased the skull and its now present body swayed in time with hands bouncing off a long row of drums. The Embers burst into flaming torches with the climaxing intensity of the beat. The torches set into the bamboo drum rack were now burning high, revealing more clearly the long thick black lock framing the paint skull face streaks of red paint in the tangles of a long curly beard gave a semblance of a thrashing octopus to the gyrating head.

The drummer struck rapidly at the other drums with his now flailing arms altering the rhythm but maintaining the same rumbling pace. As the Flames reached their pinnacle the drummer broke into a more complex pattern jumping and leaping before his alter of percussion. The high flames followed him unnaturally in his course as no dancer could have.

The silhouette of a sacrifice became visible, facing up on a stone slab half encircled by motionless shadowy forms silent with awe and a tinge of fear. The girl on the slab was as dark as the drumming wizard opposite the wall of fire. She was completely naked but for a copper collar coiled tightly around her neck. Her generous breast heaved in time with the maddening pounding of the wizard. White teeth ground between black lips, her eyes closed tight as a dreamer in the grips of a nightmare. Her smooth body writhed undulating with the dancing flames.

Strange red lightening flashed above in the overcast night sky. Crimson sparks rained down, illuminating the jungle clearing momentarily with its eerie glow. The drumming became more chaotic and the lighting overhead began a to swirl in the blood stained clouds. Crackling and sizzling like flesh on a hot iron, the lightening branched into the center of the growing vortex like spidery arms. They tore open with bright fingers a portal filled with inky void. Chaos continued to reign from the drums as a inhuman cry burst forth from the skull faced wizard.

A snake like form appeared from the inky portal that crowned the sky. Its slithering form descended towards the clearing. It became discernible in its approach to be more akin to the tentacle of a enormous cephlapod. Spiraling about itself as it came it oozed an otherworldly gray mucus.

As it reached the offering, it probed the supple curves with the tapering end slender arm.

Another great cry erupted from the lust crazed wizard brought about the previously incoherent victim.

She shrieked with abominable terror as she gazed up at her writhing doom. Blinding red lightening blasted from above and deafening thunder shook the trees of the primordial forest.

The mad drumming died away. The jungle was silent. The portal faded into dark clouds. The slab stood empty but for a few drops of virgin blood. The sky rumbled and steady rain drops began to fall.

From the high cliffs surrounding the emerald valley the ritual had been witnessed. A cruel smile pursed the lips of the old wizard Hazmet. The gods of his Stygian homeland had never made themselves so blatantly known. He had seen the incorporeal eyes of Set above the alters of Khemi, ghostly and drinking up the invisible life force of the sacrifice. This was something entirely new to him a god of flesh who took the flesh offered to him and devoured it body and soul. The Gods of Old maintained in this lost land the glory of a different age. It seemed to Hazmet that they were as loyal as those who still served them, those who must have repeated this offering into dark eons. He would know these gods.

After watching the line of torches disappeared into the jungle below, he pull the hood of his cloak tightly around his withered face and turned to his small tent perched on the widest section of the ledge. The faint green glow of witchfire emanated from with in. A small boy slept on bed of woven reeds inside. The witchfire burned warm in a small brazier adorned with a be tentacled eye, without incantation it could neither sear the flesh nor burn the silken walls of the tent that waft lightly in the breeze. The boy had fled sobbing once the gray arm had began to snake its way to the earth. A year of travel through savage lands had hardened the boy, He had dine among the hyena men Dumki, visited the haunted corridors Xuthal, even unwaveringly dozed among the dragons of the forest in the previous weeks of their journey, but facing a cosmic giant who snatched its screaming prey and dragged them into the stars had proven to much. Hazmet had never been disappointed in his seven year old apprentice, he was quiet and no longer feared his master dark magic excepted even wind travel with bravery few grown men could have mustered.

The Old wizard rested cross legged before the entrance of the tent indifferent to the drizzling rain . In the rocky soil he scratched three symbols triangularly about him, these were meant to protect his vacant body while his soul wandered. From his robes he withdrew a jade box the size of his palm, its surface was etched in cryptic hieroglyphs, he slid the lid open on grooved sides revealing a pungent black plant matter a leaf of which he placed on his tongue. Slowly he chewed leaves of the lotus flower, its juices effect tingled through his veins and numbed his skin. Breathing deeply with ecstasy he felt himself ascending. Soaring out over the valley he saw the clearing, a humble hut stood at its edge, its single window peering out over alter and slab. Bodiless he glided carelessly through the walls. Inside a large rodent roasted on a spit over a clay hearth, other than a nest of mouldering leaves in the farthest corner a central shrine was all that adorned the open mud hovel. A statue of greenish stone stood singularly on a block of what looker like black marble. The amorphous creature it depicted could only be the beast who ripped the sky asunder earlier this very evening. Its bizarre symmetry would threaten the sanity of lesser men, but Hazmet new intimately a number of its lesser kin . Before he could become lost in it strangeness a figure kneeling before it rose and spoke.

"Tahulla tell me you come" said the black man "you be here tomorrow before de high sun " he turned to face Hazmet revealing his skull painted face cracking with the wrinkles of his scowl.

Hazmet said nothing but bowed his spectral head in confirmation. The language the skull wizard spoke was known to him by some unknown means, perhaps the touch of elder things that stained the soul also opened the channel between the two wizards.

"He command me teach his secrets to de pale mon from de north." he didn't attempt to hide his disgust "I do his biddin!" he spat.

"We meet here, the village warriors will hear dat you come, fear not da spears, dey are little more dan me slave". What Hazmet thought might have been a smile revealed green teeth filed to points "go now and leave me to eat".

The skull wizard cast a symbol in the air between them and Hazmet felt himself being drawn up and out of the hut, back towards his body. Streaking up the cliff face the ground falling away before him.

His eyes shot open. The boy stood groggily before him, sleep heavy in his eyes.

"Go back to sleep little on" murmured Hazmet softly "We have a more traveling yet to do come sunrise"

The boy silently complied stumbling back to his mat.


End file.
